Quote:
Originally Posted by Admiral Halsey
As a Steeler fan this sucks. Also much as I hate to admit it until it came out he destroyed his cell phone I was actually on Brady's side. However that just smells like someone trying to hide something.
|
That's because the NFL went out of it's way to misrepresent what happened to that cell phone. Brady and his lawyer had already told the Wells that under no circumstances would they give them his cell phone so it hardly matters what they did with it later on. As for actually destroying it, that is not at all an unusual practice for the rich and famous. I'm sure there is a lot of non football related stuff on Tom Brady's cell phone that a certain element within the league office that would just love to leak out to embarrass him. I wouldn't have given those people my personal property either.
Really, this has been a mountain out of a molehill hatchet job against the Patriots by the NFL and certain sports media figures from the very start, whether it's Mortensen deliberately exaggerating the psi levels in the AFC game balls or the so called "independent" Wells report. If anything this should have been just a $5k equipment tampering fine like the NFL rules list for such an offense but instead this becomes a 7 month long media circus witch hunt that I and many of us in Patriots Nation believe more and more was just a dirty attempt to hamstring the Patriots enough that the rest of the league has a chance against them.
As for the investigation itself it would have been more competently conducted by the Keystone Cops. This is what, the 4th time in a row that the courts have tossed out Goodells punishments for similar reasons? He might be listed in the CBA as the arbitrator but that does not give him the right to arbitrarily award penalties. That does not give him the right to conduct biased investigations designed to come up with a pre determined outcome. Just ask the Dolphins coaches how Wells conducted the interviews in the Imbroglio scandal.
Seriously a quarter pound PSI loss in a ball that has apparently never been tested after half a games use is equivalent to using anabolic steroids when it comes to penalties? Screw them. Goodell, Pasch and Vincent need to go before they embarrass the league again.